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Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

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Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#241

Post by Buttons840 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #235
Buttons840 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If TikTok truly is a Chinese psyop, the most effective thing they could do is spend their remaining days sewing discontent with the government, refuse to sell, and let the whole thing burn down, thus riling up "the youths" and teaching them that their own government is a problem. They could also tell TikTok users to install a VPN and access the servers in China directly. I actually see this as a silver lining. I want…

I don't even think you need to cook up possibilities as complicated as "psyop." It is an absolute firehose of data on users and in aggregate, that is incredibly powerful. "Oh look, more people than usual have been working in office building 12 at Lockheed Martin this week" etc.

There's so many ideas about what TikTok's purpose is. By "psyop" I mean, if the purpose of TikTok is to influence the general mindset of the American populaton, then they'd throw a big tantrum and rile people up.

As you say, another possible purpose is that TikTok is used as a source of data and intel. I suppose it is a fine source for that, but also, if that's all China really wants, they can probably just buy most of that data on the shadowy data markets. The US Government shows no signs of stopping our personal data from being sold.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#242

Post by autoexec »

onepremise wrote: post #218

I think people are conflating way too many issues here with politics vs actual threats. China and Russia are not our allies. The CCP and Kremlin do not have our best interests in mind or even our most basic needs. They want to be global super powers and spread dictatorships. Democracy is a threat to absolute power. For years, the CCP and Kremlin authorities have been spreading disinformation to polarize politics in o…

TikTok isn't violating any US laws. If the US outlawed 'spreading disinformation to polarize politics' they'd have to ban youtube/facebook/twitter/reddit too. Do you think we should block all websites in China and Russia? Should we block their IP space entirely? We used to say that censoring the internet was something that only happened in Evil countries like China. We'd poke fun at their Great Firewall, but to preserve our own hypocrisy the US has decided to join in on the internet censorship game. Now congress is telling you what software you're allowed to install on your own hardware.

I think it's better to have freedom. As an American I should be able to view any media from any country I like as long as that media doesn't violate US law. Americans should have the freedom to use any software written in any country they like. In this case, we lost freedom to censorship and Democracy did nothing to stop it.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#243

Post by SnorkelTan »

THENATHE wrote: post #150
returningfory2 wrote: post #38

The work "ban" is in scare quotes for a reason. The law doesn't ban TikTok. Rather, it bans TikTok from having Chinese owners. If the law stands, the end result will likely be that TikTok will be sold to US owners, rather than TikTok going away. It's surprising to me that this this pretty significant distinction has been glossed over both in media reporting and in general comments here on HN. To be clear, I'm not sup…

The reason it is kind of wild is because a company being forced to sell basically the only thing it has in order to stay relevant in the second most major region of the world is kind of big news, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they just took the ban and then only started working in Europe and China. Is bytedance even known for anything other than tiktok? What do they do other than provide the service for tiktok?

It originally started in china as short video sharing and is quite successful there. TikTok came after their home market success. I’m spacing on the name.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#244

Post by autoexec »

efitz wrote: post #179

I see the feedback here is overwhelmingly negative. My biggest problem is that it’s too narrowly targeted. I have worked for several US businesses with global footprints and working with China (and some other countries) required whole or part ownership of the business by entities within that nation. So we partnered with businesses in China to set up and operate our infra, and had to manage everything through contract…

> Further, Chinese government officials would show up unannounced and plug shit into our networks, and required access to our encryption keys and accounts databases and employee & customer lists etc.

This happens in the US too and has been happening for a very long time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A) only when it happens to US companies they get gag orders and/or paid off. (see https://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/jun/06/ve... and https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/report-att-cooperated-... and https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/how-federal-government... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavabit)

The content on tiktok is a problem, but there's nothing on tiktok that isn't also on facebook/reddit/twitter/youtube. The difference is that when the servers are in China the US government can't get that kind of access/cooperation.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#246

Post by deciplex »

bink wrote: post #140
duxup wrote: post #113

I'm not opposed. Granted my basis would be that China effectively bans such social media apps from the outside ... I'm ok with doing the same for them.

I should hope we hold ourselves to a higher bar than China. This would effectively set the precedent that the US Congress can choose winners and losers in the market and even force a sale of a foreign company to an American company. That's the type of action taken by Russia and China that is rightfully condemned. I'd prefer if we focused on why the app is dangerous and maybe pass some comprehensive privacy or anti-mo…

> This would effectively set the precedent that the US Congress can choose winners and losers in the market

No it wouldn't, as that precedent is already set. And, not only do they choose winners, but individual members of Congress freely profit off those choices.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#247

Post by duxup »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #239
duxup wrote: post #113

I'm not opposed. Granted my basis would be that China effectively bans such social media apps from the outside ... I'm ok with doing the same for them.

Just because some other country suppresses what content their citizens see doesn't mean we should too. I think it's pretty clear that the establishment doesn't like the content on tiktok and that's a large reason for the ban.

My basis is simply a tit for tat trade situation. Roughly the same situation for Chinese social media companies as they would apply to American in China.

Content is really unrelated.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#248

Post by nunez »

Does this mean that Cheetah Mobile apps are also going to be purged from US app stores? That would be a huge net benefit if so.

What does this mean for the INSANE number of Chinese-owned IoT companies that sell products in the US that store some data in China?

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#249

Post by qp11 »

bink wrote: post #140
duxup wrote: post #113

I'm not opposed. Granted my basis would be that China effectively bans such social media apps from the outside ... I'm ok with doing the same for them.

I should hope we hold ourselves to a higher bar than China. This would effectively set the precedent that the US Congress can choose winners and losers in the market and even force a sale of a foreign company to an American company. That's the type of action taken by Russia and China that is rightfully condemned. I'd prefer if we focused on why the app is dangerous and maybe pass some comprehensive privacy or anti-mo…

The US is a weird ass country cause everything has been privatized. The banks, insurance, energy, water, food, health, telcos, the railways etc etc

Very few countries across the world do that. Govts usually own a chunk of the largest firms in strategic sectors and have seats on the board. Look at Boeing/Airbus ownership and the outcomes. Its just easier to influence large corps when you own them. If you don't own them then Boeing is the latest example in a long line up of large corps, showing everyone how they skirt whatever law and regulation the govt passes.

Re: Biden signs TikTok bill into law, starting clock for ByteDance to divest

#250

Post by MaxHoppersGhost »

willio58 wrote: post #7

I can almost hear the Meta execs cackling in their bathtubs of cash. Seriously though, this decision just feels unsubstantiated and rushed. There are so many claims of manipulation and our data being used by China via TikTok but I can't help but feel a company like Instagram does the exact same thing but it's not a Chinese company so we are just... okay with that?

It’s just going to be sold to someone else. Tiktok will still be a competitor to meta. Not getting banned
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